


Witness of the Dark

by TheSillySheep



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin
Genre: A lot of blood and shit, AU, Ballet AU, Bloody Kisses, Bloody Smut, F/M, Gore, Human Mikasa, Romance, Slow Burn, VAmpire erwin, Vampire AU, Vampire Annie, Vampire Petra, Vampires, dark themes, late smut, rivamika, vampire Levi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-01-03 21:54:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12155553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSillySheep/pseuds/TheSillySheep
Summary: Mikasa Ackerman, a young girl that expects to become a legend in the dancing world, sees her life transform in a horror story when she witnesses the unthinkable. Knowing the risks of what she's doing, she leads herself in a supernatural world in which her obsession for dancing turns over a mysterious creature that visits her at the middle of the night everyday.





	1. Stay Still

**Author's Note:**

> **Sooo... This is my first time publishing in Ao3. This story is also published in FF.net (if you prefer to read there). But anyway, I hope you like this! ♥ ******

Eren was making out with another girl… Again.

As she walked to the women's bathroom, trying not to touch the sweaty people dancing around her, tears came down her face. It was stupid how much his attitude brought her down. She should've gotten used to it, should've understood the idea long time ago, but her heart insisted in going back to him, even when her feelings weren't reciprocate.

Her knee high boots made echoes as she entered the bathroom. She went into a cubicle and sat on the toilet, crying her eyes out. Her wails weren't cushioned like the music outside the room, and this made her feel worse. She hated crying, hated to feel weak. The fact that her best friend did it even without knowing was almost hilarious.

She was supposed to be happy. Damn, she won a fucking gold medal in the individual dance competition that morning. After months and months of practicing, she did the perfect performance she craved for every day. Her friends screamed and went crazy after she won the first place. It was a tough competition, a lot of dancers from different countries and academies participated, but she showed all her talent and charm in every step she took, surprising all her opponents. As if this wasn't enough, she also won silver in the pax de deux she danced with Eren. They could have won gold, but they lacked of chemistry. Like always, Eren didn't show the same emotions she did when they danced together. This broke more her heart.

_Stupid, you're stupid._

She gasped for air, trying to calm down.

Her cellphone rang. It was Historia.

Sighing, she turned off the device and picked up her legs, resting her chin in her arms and her arms in her knees. Then, she closed her eyes.

Someone broke into the bathroom violently just when she was starting to feel her heart getting slower. A mix of gasps and little moans followed, all of them coming from a woman.

Mikasa frowned. _What the fuck?_ The club had rules that were very clear: No cuddling in the bathrooms. Didn't they know they had a damn hotel above them? It seemed like this horny couple couldn't resist themselves and had to finish the job here. So she stayed still, trying not to let the sounds they were making affect her. When these became louder and louder, Mikasa's body started to betray her, feeling like she was burning in hell after a male groan reached her ears. She thought of going out of the cubicle and screw up their horny moment, even imagined herself scolding them, but these ideas faded slowly when another male moan was heard in the place.

_Oh, God. What am I doing?_

They were going to fuck there without knowing Mikasa was listening to everything. It wasn't like they cared, anyway. After all, it was a fucking public bathroom. She put her hands in her flushed face. Her body was aching there, between her thighs, and she could feel her breasts getting sensible with every passionate breath. Still, she didn't move, just sat there, listening, her heart beating faster and faster, her skin bristling with every little sound _he_ did.

She didn't lie to herself: her curiosity was the main reason she stayed. Mikasa never had anything with anyone. She always focused in her responsibilities and even when she liked Eren, she didn't let that affect her when she was training or studying. Still, she remembered two times when she was alone in the dark and her curiosity leaded her to watch porn, not because she felt in the mode to, but because she was curious about how it felt to have sex. She ended frustrated, the material not being what she was looking for.

This time was different, this time she almost could feel the smell of sex going into her nostrils and making her dizzy, making her feel she was the woman he was about to take, the desperation and eagerness in the woman's voice as she craved for his co…

She opened her eyes, shocked.

It was then than the sounds changed.

"What are you doing?" Asked the woman. Her voice was very, very sensual, and Mikasa frowned when she discovered how her legs were starting to go down the floor to stand up and get closer to the voice. "Hey, stop. I told you I didn't want to… Stop" The voice was so, so captivating… It felt like she was being called by it, like she was getting trapped in a hole of pure lust.

_What the hell…?_

She put her arms around her legs, making them stay on the toilet. Eyes wide open, she tried to see what was going on through the small slit of the cubicle. At the beginning, she didn't understand the picture in front of her. She narrowed her yes this time and, finally, she saw the figure of the couple.

The man was giving Mikasa his back, and he had the woman's arms over her head, her body facing the wall. He was wearing a black overall and had an undercut. He looked very, very muscular despite his height.

He was kissing the woman's neck. That's what Mikasa thought when she saw his head between her head and shoulder… Until the woman screamed in horror and he covered her mouth in an unbelievable fast move.

A series of weird, fast and unbearable movements followed. Mikasa's lips opened in a terrified expression, awareness hitting her like a firetruck. She didn't believe in fairy tales or legends. She could remember when, being a teenager, she got a little obsession on Dracula, but nothing else. They were pure entertainment, stories that a grandma would tell her grandchildren to amaze them and make them laugh, stories that would be part of someone's hobbies.

And still, believing it or not, the man was drinking the woman's blood. She saw how he pushed her against the wall, forcing her body to stay still even when she put on resistance. Her hands tried to get him off of her, but it was like trying to move a mountain, and Mikasa _sensed_ it. She wanted it to be a joke, a very realistic prank, and then he growled, hitched his fingers in the woman's arms until they teared apart her skin and sucked _more._

It was real, thought Mikasa, as her blank face got away of the slit, her instinct telling her to be quieter than ever if she wanted to live. She couldn't see his face, but she was able to see how his head moved as he took out all the female's blood, she was able to hear the sound of his throat swallowing the red liquid.

So she stayed silent. Silent until the woman dropped her last sound, a painful clamor that shook Mikasa's body. Silent until the monster moaned one more time and his body betrayed him, twitching slowly as pleasure went through him. Silent until he gasped for air and another growl came out of his mouth.

_Don't move._

Mikasa wasn't thinking in anything else, just in how much she wanted to live. She didn't care the fact that her life was in danger because of a vampire, she cared that her life was in danger and nothing more. She felt selfish, even stupid, thinking that way when a creature that was supposed to be a myth was no more than ten steps away from her, but her mind only rounded around it, around _surviving against this monster._

The sound of a body being dropped in the floor made her startle.

And then, on the other side, the silence was made too.

Mikasa hid her face on her legs and covered her head with her arms in a very slow move, pleading in silence her clothes didn't do much noise. She stayed there for what it felt like an eternity, fear her only companion. Even worse, the feeling grow up and up, her mind telling her that the creature was still there, watching her, teasing her, knowing since the beginning that a little, weak human witnessed everything.

_I'm going to die here._

Was she?

And as this thought betrayed her brain, someone opened the door of the bathroom.

"Mikasa, are you here?"

She straightened, opening her eyes. She knew that voice very well. Jumping off of the toilet, she opened her cubicle and crashed with her trainer, Hange Zoe. The woman grabbed her shoulders and checked her from head to toe.

"You scared us! We've been looking for you the last hour. What were you doing here?"

Mikasa didn't answer. She just looked around her, searching for any hint of what happened, but there was no one, _no fucking one_ , only Hange and her. Still, it felt wrong.

_How's possible…?_

"Mikasa…?"

She shook her head and blinked.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Are you OK? You look like you just saw Jean's balls."

Mikasa smiled, but the smile didn't reach her eyes.

"I'm OK." She looked around one more time, and then put her eyes on her coach, that walked towards the mirror to check her eye contacts.

"Hange?"

The woman turned around, staring at her favorite dancer.

"Yes?"

"Was here… was here somebody when you entered?"

She shuddered, hold Mikasa on her left forearm and started to go out of the place.

"No, only you and me. Why?"

_Because a man… a vampire was here with a woman that he killed after he sucked the hell out of her blood._

Mikasa let her trainer guide her through the people on the dancefloor, her mind centered in the same scene again and again. The music was only a buzz in her ears and wherever she saw, she had the feeling that she was being stalked.

She felt helpless and indescribable fragile.

When they reached their friends, Hange turned around to see her with more attention again.

"Mikasa, are you sure everything's OK?"

But even when the world seemed to spin, when the ghost of horror danced through her veins and arteries and the word vampire went on replay in her brain, the only thing that Mikasa couldn't forget now was how he growled, how his body moved against the woman with obvious pleasure.

"Everything's OK."

She discovered, in the middle of her celebration after a triumph, what she truly wanted.

She discovered she wasn't normal at all.


	2. A Silhouette Staring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your support! Hope you like it! ♥

"You are going to dance Le Corsaire."

That's what the artistic director said after they went back from their competition abroad. Around eighty dancers were listening to him, all of them excited to finally perform it.

"The ones that want to opt for the main roles can prepare to make auditions in six weeks. While now, you're going to keep up with your current training." No one said something. They got the message he sent: he was looking for new principal dancers.

So, the tension fell on the dancers' shoulders. All of them wanted to perform as Medora and Conrad, all of them wanted to be the star of the night. Thinking in their own resolutions, they didn't pay attention to anybody's attitude. Not even Mikasa's.

When her quiet presence passed between them, her calm personality making their silence more awkward, they thought it was part of that tension that covered all of them. Even the ones that weren't affected at all by the important statements of the artistic director believed she was being herself as always, but it wasn't the truth.

Mikasa hadn't slept since they went back from the competition abroad. She had been waking up at three or four in the morning, sweating and breathing like her life was in danger.

She felt it that way.

Then, unable to rest again, she started to surf internet, searching information about fantastic creatures. She'd watched all the movies about vampires she could, none of them scaring her, but they didn't give her the peace she looked for. The sun would go out and she would be there, still in front of the computer, dissatisfied and with the same sense of danger that made her nights a pure hell.

Every nightmare she had was different from the others, but with the same ending: she being pressed against a wall by an entity that desired to drink her blood. She hated it, hated the bitter feel in her mouth every time she'd woken up almost crying.

She wanted to find an explanation to what she saw that day in the club. Every day, at least, was a little more solace as she walked around the people she loved. It made her feel normal and forget what happened. Maybe it was a hallucination, product of all the time she spent practicing and fighting with Eren to make their pax de deux better, or maybe caused thanks to the alcohol she had in her body. Whatever the reason it was, every morning felt like a little step forward, the overcoming embracing her with each movie, each documental, each book she read about vampires.

_It was stupid_ , she thought as she started to do the exercises that day in the ballet school. _You can't really be thinking in the vampires' existence._

But then, at night, the nightmares went to her again, and Mikasa fell again in the same memory: the creature killing that woman, moaning with every swig, enjoying her like she was some kind of feast.

After two weeks of the same thing, Mikasa decided to stop watching stuff related to vampires. Instead, she did abs each time a new nightmare attacked. This helped her to sleep earlier, but it didn't stop the nightmares. After two weeks of doing abs without results in her sleeping habits, an idea crossed her mind. She was doing the plank when, frustrated, stood up and walked over the window of her room, sweat covering her forehead.

Maria City was not that big. It had an oceanic climate with very high rainfall. Wherever she saw were large wooded areas, which made the place very beautiful and pure. There were more rainy days than warm days, and Mikasa loved it very much. Her parents always took her to trips, teaching her the importance of the nature.

One of the things she used to do when she was younger was to dance in the backyard of her house. It didn't have a fence so, when she danced there, she felt inside a magical world, knowing that a great forest was just some steps from her. She stopped doing it when her parents put her in ballet school, having no time at all to enjoy the freeness of the woods, the smell of the pines and the cold air touching her fine skin. Her dancing skills started to being polished, restricted to the elegance and perfection of the ballet.

Watching through the window, Mikasa felt this was the final option. She had hope that, repeating her favorite childhood fun, the horrible memory of that night in the club was going to vanish and let her sleep _in peace._

With resolution in her eyes, she took her ipod and a bottle of water and went out, only wearing her pajama dress and a black sweater on it. Bared feet, she walked slowly on the wet grass, pure silence around her. Her neighbors' house, the Jaegers, had its lights off, just as her own house. Sighing, she put her earphones on and tried to focus in the music. It was dark, really dark. The sun hadn't come out yet and, by the feeling of the air, it was going to rain soon.

Her eyes fell over the trees that marked the end of the backyard and the beginning of the forest. It was absolutely black, fog dancing in a slow pace among the branches of the pines. She swallowed, blinking twice as she scold herself for being a coward. Giving her back to the forest, she started to dance. She felt forced and mechanical, every step came through her legs like she had stones on her toes. She rolled her eyes at her own lack of confidence at that moment. Mikasa didn't want to be awkward. More than that, she wanted to dance even better than on stage, feel like a wild animal going back to its roots.

The movements started to flow, music taking over her body. A huge smile appeared in her face as emotion made her hop twice, these followed by three leaps she did in a rush. Her breath was erratic, her arms moved like snakes looking for someone to bite, her belly burning for exercising before, but Mikasa didn't care. She felt alive, happiness sparkling around her, her dim thoughts washed away thanks to her passion: dancing. She even sang the lyrics of the song, no caring at all how her lungs screamed for air. Her thighs felt on fire, her hips never moved so free before. She rolled in the floor, moved her head like a rock star, she even did an aerial cartwheel and a full twisting layout, flips she learnt imitating her favorite gymnastics.

Mikasa wasn't stupid: she knew the talent she had. Whatever she wanted to learn, she learned it. Nothing was an obstacle for her. Her mother liked to call her the next Prima ballerina abssoluta, enhancing her love for dancing, her obsession for being the principal dancer. It wasn't only her talent, but her irremediable beauty that automatically put her in a higher spot. Although this was obvious, she didn't think about it as a wildcard, and she found herself envying the delicacy of the other dancers very often, hating her own abs or the way her muscles marked by making simple moves.

Right now, however, none of that cared. Mikasa was being herself again.

The song _—the fifth song—_ finished.

She stopped the shuffling on her ipod to breath, wiping out the sweat on her face, and laughed in silence at her own amusement. Cold air caressed her back, her hair strings at her nape raising. She stood there, still smiling, when sudden consciousness crossed her mind.

_The silence._ Forests were places in which noise was an immutable characteristic. At night, insects and reptiles did little hissing sounds, so not hearing them was definitively odd. She felt her breath stop, her skin turning from red to white in just a matter of seconds, her knees trembling, almost unable to stand.

And then the feeling, the ghastly sensation of being observed. Mikasa's legs shook when she turned around to see what was behind her.

Wind moved the trees at the end of the backyard in a very furious way. Between the tree trunks, only black spaces. The moon was hiding together with the stars, and the air felt thicker around her, impossible to inhale. No sound came from anywhere, just dead, frightening, and paralyzing hush. Her family was right behind, and yet Mikasa felt alone and far, far away. Her grey eyes blinked every two seconds, her opened lips as pale as the rest of her face.

She watched at the same part of the forest for what it felt like ages when suddenly, just like she was witnessing some kind of sinister hallucination, a silhouette formed among the pines. Mikasa tripped, shocked, and fell to the ground, eyes focused in the figure that was getting closer. It stopped at the end of her backyard, and its face was hidden in the shadows.

Doubtless, what she was watching was the same creature of the club. The same shape, muscular and not tall at all, but with a predator aura that froze her extremities and didn't let her breath. He moved his head to one side, examining her perhaps, and she felt a lone tear run down her face. She couldn't stop staring at him. Once she turned to run, Mikasa knew she was dead.

She never thought of that, the possibility of being found by him. How foolish was to think that this was the solution for her sleeping problems? Going out in the middle of the night, alone, with a forest in front of her? In that moment she hated herself for being so naive. Maybe he was waiting for her all this time, hunting her in a stealthy way, and she came and offered her life like a big treat. Mikasa even bet the monster was maybe surprised at her lack of intelligence. After all, she didn't speak about what happened with anyone.

At that moment, she didn't care about being weak. Again, she only cared about _surviving._ Thus she did what she only thought was her only escape.

She spoke.

"Who are you?" Her voice broke twice, showing how scared she was.

He didn't move, nor answer.

"Why are you here?" Mikasa attempted to put on her feet, but her body was immobilized by her own terror. However, her voice came more appeased.

Five seconds passed until he finally moved. Just one step closer, touching the beginning of the backyard. Mikasa pulled back, her breath in her throat when his face came clearer to her.

Insecurity showed in her face. Somehow, she understood why that woman enjoyed him so much. He was handsome, really handsome, in a way she didn't expect. High cheeks, full lips, and eyes that seemed to catch the low light that was around them. A permanent glare in them told her he was upset… and she was the main reason. Almost forgetting why she's scared, the thought made her pull back more, breathe getting faster.

He looked at her so, so stilled, she doubted he was breathing. Mikasa sucked down and checked his clothes, noticing his black turtleneck sweater beneath his long black jacket. He had pants and military boots… also black.

She hesitated to speak again, but she did, ignoring how dry her eyes had become.

"Do I know you? What are you doing in my backyard?" She asked, trying to imprint some anger in her voice. "If you don't leave, I'll call the police."

He took a step forward, making her jump a little.

_"Who are you? Why are you here? Do I know you?"_

Mikasa felt her abdomen contract at his voice. She stopped a moan _—a moan—_ at her throat, her face feeling redder than ever. She didn't do it in purpose. It was more like… like when she heard that woman's voice in the club. Eagerness through her chest, down her belly, and a necessity to run to his voice.

Just that this time it felt worse.

"Unneeded questions to make me believe you don't know who I am, what I am."

He was right. Mikasa tried to pull back, even when she felt frozen… no, not frozen. She felt more similar to a _lava_ puddle, thick and extremely hot. He casually took more steps nearer, Mikasa feeling how her hope reached the lowest spot in her heart.

Still, she wasn't crying. Mikasa wasn't going to let him see her suffering, beseeching for her life. She didn't give a fuck what he was, even when her body reacted so painfully to his enchanting aura.

"Are you going to kill me?" She questioned him. Her voice trembled, but it also came out in a low tone, like a vain threat.

He approximated, and approximated, and approximated. Every stride felt like an upper stage in Mikasa's temperature. He bended, the color of his orbs being clearer now he was just in front of her, thirty centimeters between her feet and his legs.

His eyes were black. But Mikasa's naive investigations told her the sinister truth: he was _hungry._

She let out a little gasp, but she didn't scream. He turned his head again and she was able to see confusion through his angular face before blank mask covered it again.

"Are you going to kill me?" Repeated.

He stayed silent, his arms resting on his knees, darkness surrounding him as it recognized his nature. He sighed, cold air like ice caressing Mikasa's cheeks. Seconds later, a light went on inside the house behind her. At this point, Mikasa was so into him, that she didn't even realize she felt disappointment when she heard the fridge door being opened inside the kitchen.

Somehow, his obscure eyes appeared to be _smiling._

"I can't kill you."

Mikasa, still scared, scowled a little.

"Why?"

"You are not giving me a reason to."

Someone opened the back door of the porche.

"Who's there? Oh!"

Mikasa's heart skipped a beat. She turned her face to her mom, which was lighting the backyard with the flash of her cellphone.

"Mikasa! Jesus Christ! You scared the fuck out of me!"

The girl stood up in less than a second and turned to see… no one.

He was gone again.

"S-sorry mom" She murmured, her voice not sounding convincing enough. She hugged herself when the wind hit her body, grey eyes searching for the same silhouette that haunt her, but the forest was in its natural stage again, as if the living finally could leave out a breath of relief.

Her mom claim her attention once more.

"Sorry? What are you doing here, outside, at this hour? You're gonna get a cold!"

Mikasa hurried up to her side, trying not to appear comforted now that she heard her voice again. Then she remembered that, definitively, he was still close, and fear reached her bones as she dragged her mom inside the house with her.

_He's dangerous._

Was he?

"I'm sorry." She repeated, while she locked the door. Her mom frowned when she saw Mikasa doing it. "I couldn't sleep, so I went to practice some cabrioles."

"Cabrioles? On the backyard?"

Mikasa looked at her mom and pressed her back on the locked door, finally taking a deep breath. Her voice came plain.

"It helps me lose my fear when I do it in the dark."

Her mom observed her with an unconvinced expression for two long seconds. She crossed her arms.

"Is Eren finally getting into you?" Her mom said, checking through the window to see if Eren was there.

Mikasa put a horror face.

"Wait, _what?_ No!" She exclaimed. "I was just dancing, mom. Dancing _alone,_ OK?"

"You know you can talk to me about it, I know is hard to be honest when you're not into courtships and-"

She almost rolled her eyes.

"Mom, please, stop."

Her mother exhaled and nodded slowly, still frowning.

"Alright, alright. If you say it that way, it sounds very weird. I didn't know you had sleeping problems."

_Me neither, mom._

She stayed unresponsive for some seconds, her brain creating a lie as fast as it could.

"I have an audition in two weeks. It's… an important role."

"You always get important roles."

"Yes, but this is more important."

Her mom put a comprehensive face, nodding exaggeratedly.

"Got it. Don't worry, child. You'll have that role, you always do. And if you don't, remember you're still hotter than all those whiny girls."

After exchanging some other words with her, Mikasa went to her room, paranoia making her close her window and even put some books in it after running the curtains to hide the forest beyond the house. She covered her body from head to toe with her black quilt and put on her earphones, shutting her eyes so hard they burned.

_Don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think about it._

_"You are not giving me a reason to."_

Mikasa hid her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking without spilling tears.

_I don't want to know what's going on with me._

She could remember the terror, the delicacy of her life at his mortal hands, a string he could cut with a simple, effortless motion.

But now when she was alone again, she recognized that what she felt was product of being exposed to the unknown, she recognized she was unable to deny that he was the most beautiful creature she had seem in her whole life.

And that… scared her more than knowing he was a monster.

She closed the window, not only in a vain hope to protect herself from him, but also to protect herself from her own mind.

Not lasting long, Mikasa fell asleep, this time without nightmares torturing her.


	3. The Call of the Darkness

Mikasa's nightmares stopped, but she still woke up at the same hour every day, and now it was because she couldn't help but think about _him_. She walked in her room, fighting with herself to get her crazy ideas straight until the morning light reached her room. She felt the same necessity calling, the forest asking her to embrace her in its darkness.

Eye bags got darker in her face as the days passed, but her parents didn't say anything about it. She asked for privacy and this request was always accepted thanks to her determination in everything she did. However, she never took advantage of this. In fact, she sometimes wished they put on more pressure, like typical parents did.

It was the way the people she loved treated her that made her more self-conscious of her own decisions and thoughts, which let her to not talk about her problems or worries. Not her feelings, not her opinions, not her likes or dislikes… She did it only when it was asked, and sometimes she didn't even answered at all.

And now that was troubling her. If it wasn't for this, she would had spoken of what she witnessed long time ago, she would had looked for help, would had screamed the truth to everybody in the club, would had found more terrifying the death of that woman than her current obsession with the killer.

 _Now it's too late_ , she thought one of those nights in which she couldn't sleep, walking towards the end of the backyard. The gloom felt so wrong, yet her only desire was to hear his captivating voice again.

She stood right at the beginning of the woods, her hands sweating inside her grey sweater. The breeze moved her hair strands in a slow motion, hitting her cold face and making her remember her weaknesses. She opened her mouth around five times, but no words came out. She let a little breathe pass through her lips, nervousness in every furious beat of her heart. Closing her eyes, she convinced herself she wasn't wrong. At all.

_It doesn't feel that way._

"Are you there?"

Mikasa opened her eyes. The forest was as dim as a wolf's mouth, but silence wasn't in its areas today. She heard all kind of natural sounds coming from there, and it felt so normal that courage polluted her insane resolutions. "Tell me you're here, _please._ " She whispered, and her plead was in vain. He wasn't there, she could feel it. Mikasa was alone, completely alone. Her fists clenched with anger coming up through her body until it exploded in words. "What have you done to me?!" She screamed, but not louder enough to wake up anyone. "I can't… I can't stop thinking about you." Admitted in a low tone, her eyes glaring at the dark as if he was hiding there.

After some seconds, Mikasa shook her head and entered to her house. Yes, he wasn't there, but his presence wasn't essential to answer her own doubts, all of them based in her desires: she wasn't angry because of her insomnia, or angry because of what he did to that woman or what he did to her.

She was angry because he didn't come back, he didn't come to see her, to follow her as she sensed days before he popped up from the dark to face her.

_Darkness is the place in which the most dangerous creatures of this world live._

That's what her father used to say when she was younger, a way to ensure she didn't try to go in the forest alone.

How was she going to tell him she witnessed the worst of the dark and wanted to do it again?

…

Five days before the auditions for Le Corsaire, Mikasa's friends went to her house. All of them were finally in the town and it was almost the end of the summer. In some days, most of them would had to go back to university.

It was hard to make a reunion, since each one of them had to visit different places before going to Maria City. However, they had a great opportunity and everything was arranged in a very short time.

Mikasa's house wasn't the main option to make their crazy meeting, but she was so lost in her herself that she said yes when her friend —and dancer like her—, Historia, asked her if they could choose her house as the place of encounter.

Now, almost twenty boys and girls were inside her house hanging out.

She went out of the house some hours later, fresh air waiting for her. She sat on the little stairs of the door, admiring the moon that looked like it was being hold by the top of the pines. It was weird to see the clear sky with only some little, fluffy clouds that danced among the stars. Her expression went delighted, internally deciding she was going to remember the beautiful sight the rest of her life.

Seconds later, Armin opened the door at her back and sat with her, a fair smile in his lips.

Mikasa didn't try to stop when she looked at the trees in front of her, tension showing in her face.

"What?" he said as he followed her gaze. Mikasa let out an awkward sound and smiled, her eyes widening.

"Nothing. Are you having fun?"

Armin smiled too, his blue eyes lighter with the reflection of the moon on then.

"Yes. I missed the group. We didn't have this fun since our last days in high school." He saw Mikasa's calm face and coughed silently. "I haven't… seen you a lot with them tonight. Is there something bothering you?"

Mikasa heaved a sigh, her eyes falling in the forest again. By the way he was observing her, Mikasa knew he noticed her tired face long time ago.

"I'm having problems to sleep." She confessed. Armin was the closest she had to a best friend while she was in High School. After he got a scholarship in one of the most prestigious universities in the country to study physics, she felt a little lost, not because she needed him, but because it was a strange feeling she never experienced before: being separated from someone loved.

"I can see that." He put a thoughtful expression. "Is it because of Eren?"

She smiled. After all, everybody knew what she felt for him.

"No." She waited some seconds to continue. "I wish it was that the reason."

He raised his eyebrows in an aggrieved expression, but then he nodded.

"What is it, then?"

She thought about it for a moment, pondering her words.

"I guess is my future. Recently, it's been feeling so, so far away from me. I still want to go to Opera Royal Ballet, you know that."

He smiled.

"Is it hard?"

She observed the sky.

"No."

"Nothing's hard for you."

Mikasa flushed, but her serene mien didn't change.

"I wish dancing was hard for me."

"Why?" He asked.

"Right now…" She murmured, holding her chin in the palm of her right hand as she took a deep breath. "Is what I need the most. Eren's like that, isn't he? He doesn't rest until everything's perfect. If it were that way for me too, I wouldn't have time to think about other things."

"Other things, like…?"

She tightened herself in the jacket.

"Things… but enough about me. What about you? How's life at the university?"

Armin laughed, but let the topic turn over him.

"Harder than I thought. Finding the X never felt so difficult before." Both laughed quietly. "But I never had so much fun trying to." He flushed a little, a side smile coming to his face as he looked up to the sky. "I'm so happy to see you, Mikasa. I missed you. Girls aren't common in our school, and is hard to live between competitive nerds."

She raised her chin.

"I'm a nerd too."

"You were a nerd. Now you're the next _Prima Ballerina Assoluta._ "

She gave him a little push.

"I missed you too." He grinned and put his left arm around her, making her rest her strong body in his chest. After some seconds of pure silence, Armin spoke again.

"You know you cannot be like this all the time, Mikasa. One day, you're going to explode."

She closed her eyes, swallowing. He was right, she needed to talk about this with someone.

"I've been obsessed with something… I don't want to, but is like water." She opened her hands in front of her face, analyzing them. "It escapes from my hands when I try to keep it in control. I don't know why is it so difficult, but that's not the worst part."

Armin's blonde hair looked white thanks to the light of the moon, almost as white as his face in that moment.

"The worst part is that I-"

"HOLY HELL! ARMIN, YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS SHIT!" Screamed Eren inside the house.

Mikasa's eyes went huge. She separated from Armin, putting space between them, fear showing in her face because of what she was about to say. The blonde one saw how she changed to her old attitude again, but if he had something to say, he kept it to himself.

"Sorry, Mikasa." He stood up, walking to the door behind them. "We'll continue this conversation later. Are you coming inside?"

She denied, her eyes on the sky.

"I'm staying."

"Alright, then." He turned back, getting into the house. "I'm coming, Eren!"

What Mikasa didn't know was that Armin saw it since they started talking: how her shiny eyes focused always in the forest.

…

_He is a monster._

Yet she woke up after dreaming with him.

_He killed an innocent woman._

Yet she tended to forget that when she thought of his face.

_He is dangerous. He is going to kill you._

Yet she was walking through the backyard again, craving for something she couldn't understand, something she didn't _want_ to understand, just feel.

_He is here._

She sensed it, the difference in the air, in the atmosphere. That night the moon was lightning everything as it did hours ago. With all the lights out and the music of the meeting with her friends off, the stars were clear in the sky, its glow making the forest look like a magical place… If it wasn't for the silence. The only sound was her own unsteady breath and the minimal motions of the pines, caused by the breeze.

She glared at the woods.

"I know you're here." She said. "Please, come out to the light."

No motion. Mikasa stood there, her fingers scratching the fabric of her green pijamas. Then, slowly, the same silhouette of her dreams appeared beyond the trees that weren't reached by the dim light of the moon, his steps so calm and soft it looked like he was floating.

Light touched his face, and Mikasa saw his eyes. Today, they were different.

His irises were red, red like _blood._

_He has killed someone else recently._

Mikasa felt her legs weaker. Nevertheless, she didn't think of going back not even once, and when he was finally standing just five steps from her, Mikasa realized she wasn't scared anymore: just terribly nervous and anxious.

_You wanted this._

She bended slowly, her grey, human eyes never deviating from his red, dangerous ones. She sat on the grass, her heels pressing against her buttocks, and she exposed her life to him. His eyelids had fallen until they were only two splits that promised death, curiosity in them.

When she felt her heartbeats normalize, he spoke, sending the same chills through her skin.

 _"Brat."_ He said, his voice making her take a deep, shaking breath. "You're a naive human. You kept coming."

She looked away, a furious blush covering her cheeks.

"How do you know that?" She murmured.

His face showed amusement even when he wasn't smiling.

"Your smell is all over the place."

She cleared her throat, feeling offended.

 _"Don't."_ He hissed. "I didn't say you smell bad."

Her eyes went to his face again, suspicious.

"Is not like I did it on purpose." She spoke, trying to ignore the fact that he read her thoughts through her face. "You…" She felt her face getting red. "Are always in my head and I can't… stop it." _I don't want it to stop._ "I have this necessity to… come here and…"

But she couldn't say anything else. She knew what was next: _Can you stop it? Can you leave me alone? Can you disappear and stop coming?_ Still, only mutism came from her lips.

He stared for a long moment, but Mikasa sensed he wasn't really paying her attention. His mind was away from there. He turned his great back to her, and Mikasa watched how he stood for three long minutes in that position.

In that moment, she took note of how normal he looked from behind. A simple man, perhaps from a powerful family, based on his clothes. The way he was standing, so casually, yet showing reservation, could had been easily confused with a business man during a vacation trip.

On the other hand, all of these went invalid when his aura reached her: a desperately alarm that told her he wasn't a trusted one, that she must had ran away since the beginning. Yet, her chest screamed every time she thought about him, her hands shook, longing his skin like if they knew who he was.

Mikasa covered her mouth, not understanding how her need for him was bigger than her fear.

He chose that moment to look at her again in a tensed way.

"Did you feel it that night, in the club?"

She blinked.

"What?"

"An uncontrollable attraction to us."

Mikasa frowned, but she thought about it… and yes, she remembered having felt that when she heard the woman's voice. However, it wasn't as hard and desperate as she felt it with him.

"Yes."

For the first time since she saw him, the vampire sighed, his exotic features showing something closer to _anxiety._ He took a step closer.

"Are you feeling it right now?"

Mikasa's heart started to beat so hard that she didn't need to answer, he _heard_ it, somehow. Even with this, fury flashed in his eyes, like he couldn't believe it.

"You don't care what I am."

She swallowed, tears accumulating in her yes. A little no came from her lips. He grinned, mocking her. Mikasa frowned.

"I don't care you're a _vampire_."

She said it. That was it, the stupid, unbelievable, yet terrible truth. He was a vampire and she _didn't_ care.

"Do you care now?"

The next second and without blinking, he was over her, his hands grabbing her wrists, his strong knees pushing her torso and between her legs.

She couldn't breathe, the air got stuck in her chest just as she felt his body, his harsh, cold hands touching her. Fire exploded inside her, and she tried to tell him how deep he affected her, but it was impossible. The only she could do was say no with her head as little cold whispers touched her skin, making her melt. He was cold, really cold, yet she never felt something so heated going crazy inside of her before.

He wasn't breathing either. His fists tightened on her wrists and Mikasa's lips opened without any sound coming out.

 _"Do you care now?"_ He growled, his voice transforming in something that definitively didn't sound human.

He showed his true face.

His eyeteeth transformed in big tusks, so big that he had to open his mouth to not cut himself. They angled until a series of small, sharp and lethal teeth replaced the humans he used to have, and a roar came out of him, huge enough to made her tear, thanks to her amazement. The sclera of his eyes turned black, making the red of his orbs more sinister than before, and Mikasa doubted there was an animal that could resemble the horror he showed. Little drops of saliva hit her face as the roar ended, and the silence that followed was like an omen of her death.

Tears rolled down her temples.

"I'm not afraid anymore." She managed to say.

They stayed like that for some seconds, both impacted because of what that meant.

His face went back to his human form as he stood up, pure shock in his features.

Mikasa sat and stared at him, that was sitting against a tree now, his eyes never letting go of her body, going from her toes to her head and then back to her toes, obvious unbelief in them.

"It's impossible." He muttered. "How's…?" He stopped, his eyes going to the house behind her. In a sudden, his face went to the same cold expression. "Your mother is waking up." He glared at her. "If you're intelligent enough, you're going to go back to your house and never think about coming here again."

_NO!_

Mikasa's hands went to her chest, pain crossing through it like an arrow.

"No…" She whispered.

He denied, desperation floating from his aura.

"I know what you want, _Mikasa,_ and it's not me."

 _What is this?_ Thought Mikasa, _why does it hurt so much to let go of him?_

"Please…"

She heard the door behind her being opened.

"Mikasa? Are you outside again? What was that?"

Her mother turned on the flash of her cellphone, and Mikasa murmured please before he transformed in ashes until there was nothing. The lightning reached her, showing she was alone now.

Her mom got closer.

"Mikasa? Are you crying?"

She touched her cheeks.

That was, she was crying.

_You're not… You can't leave me._

She was sure, he was going to come back to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand here is it! Hoped you liked it, please let me know what you think about it♥ See ya next chapter!


	4. A Monster's Answers

_Eren Jaeger (Tatakae): How was your audition guys?_

_Jean Kirstein (Horseface): Amazing, not a single mistake… What about you?_

_Eren Jaeger (Tatakae): I almost lost balance in one of my fouettés D:_

_Historia Reiss (QueenB): Oh, rlly? :/_

_Eren Jaeger (Tatakae): Yeah, I got scared after that, but I did all what I culd to not show it. What about u?_

_Eren Jaeger (Tatakae): Could*_

_Historia Reiss (QueenB): I did gr8, I hope they choose me, but I don’ think so. I’m too short to take the role :Cries:_

_Sasha Braus (Blackhole): I’m so fucking hungry, o h m y G o d. The worst thing is that I can’t eat pizza bcoz I’m 2 pounds fatter than the last month #KillMePls_

_Jean Kirstein (Horseface): Sasha, pls, shoo. Historia c’mon, not that bullshit again. You’ll get the role, 0 worries._

_Historia Reiss (QueenB): Is easy for you to say it, you’re not in the corps anymore._

_Jean Kirstein (Horseface): I was, but now I’m first dancer (and a proud one). #ErenCouldNever_

_Eren Jaeger (Tatakae): Oh, shut up, horseface._

_Jean Kirstein (Horseface): At least I don’t look like an anime character._

_Eren Jaeger (Tatakae): Yeah, that anime character is more relevant than your ass._

_Jean Kirstein (Horseface): Is miri rilivint thin yir iss_

_Sasha Braus (Blackhole): I just ordered a pizza, fml._

_Sasha Braus (Blackhole): And what about Mikasa? She hasn’t appeared since the audition._

_Eren Jaeger (Tatakae): Idk where is she. Are u going to take the main role?_

_Sasha Braus (Blackhole): My leaps sucked so nope. Hange is gonna kill me, I’m too fat._

_Eren Jaeger (Tatakae): Yeah, you told us that alrdy._

_Historia Reiss (QueenB): I’m sure Mikasa is going to win the main role of the ballet. She always do and she looks a lot like Medora._

_Jean Kirstein (Horseface): Actually, I saw her leaving after her audition and she didn’t look happy at all. I talked to Hange and she told me that Mikasa lost her balance twice during her fouettés and she shook a lot during most of the adagio._

_Sasha Braus (Blackhole): Wtf no babe, what is u doing???_

_Eren Jaeger (Tatakae): You’ve got to be kidding, horseface_

_Historia Reiss (QueenB): What???? I mean, no offense, but we’re pure shit next to Mikasa, so this is definitively weird, lol._

_Eren Jaeger (Tatakae): Ikr_

_Jean Kirstein (Horseface): So that’s why I’m wondering.. Who’s gonna take the role then??_

_Sasha Braus (Blackhole): Ok, my pizza arrived, c ya 2morrow._

Mikasa stopped reading the messages and blocked her cellphone, drinking wine from her cup as she stared at the trees in front of her with a concentrated, bored face. A cricket made its sounds not that far from where she was sitting and she almost moved her hand to smash it, pure irritation flowing inside of her. She checked the time: 5:19 am. She suppressed a yawning that was coming out of her mouth and wiped the tears that went with the slumber. She looked at the empty bottle at her feet, the second one she drank that week —the first was a day before her audition— and a tired sigh escaped as she stood up, took the bottle and her cellphone and started to walk through the backyard to her house, not watching behind even once.

Just that this time, she decided, it was the last one.

Somehow, she was going to stop it.

 

…

 

Hours later, at the time that the dancers started stretching and warming in the academy, Mikasa went straight to the board in which the names of the chosen dancers for Le Corsaire were. She didn’t look at anybody, but she could feel the eyes of all of them in her as she came closer to the papers with the results. She shouldn’t be surprised with their attitudes, the gossip of her horrible audition went viral through all the academy and it was really bad, talking about how she always got the best roles —always— in every dance presentation they had.

So, when she saw that Historia Reiss was going to be Medora and she didn’t figure out in the main roles, Mikasa felt nothing. She’d stood just there, rereading her failure, watching how her dreams got a little further from her.

Blinking and noticing the dryness of her eyes, Mikasa moved to do her routine, making everybody startled at her suddenly motion and leaving the dancers with an opened mouth and a great amount of material to discuss between them. 

But as the day went on, Mikasa’s anger grew up. How was she so stupid to let things end this way? She wanted so hard to have the spot, and yet her mind deviated to something that wasn’t even good for her: the monster that haunted her dreams didn’t give her anything but unsatisfied lust and a confused mind in which a tragedy she had the disgrace to witness was less important than having him closer enough to feed her aching body. She reacted to her wrongness too late, and now a big opportunity was lost. After all, Mikasa considered every role as important as the previous one.

Her friends —Historia principally— avoided her, maybe imagining she was going to scream to them or make them feel guilty because of her own mistakes. She let them do, more because she didn’t want to talk to anybody than because she was angry with them. Mikasa didn’t care if they won against her. Actually, she was happy for them. After all, they got the main roles thanks to their effort and improvement. 

While she was training, Hange called her to her office with a severe face. There, she told her all the mistakes she did in the audition, but there was one that got the most of Mikasa’s attention. 

“You didn’t get the role not because of your shaky legs or your imbalance, but because of your expression. You looked bad, like you had weeks without sleeping, and your gestures were far away from Medora’s character. The director didn’t want a serious Medora lacking of spark, he wanted a girl that could portrait her with perfection, and you missed that in that moment.”

Mikasa stood in front of her desk quietly, bending her face to hide her embarrassment. A long silence was done until Hange dropped a long _ah_ and put on her feet, walking closer to her favorite student, who hid even more in her red scarf.

“Now I’m gonna ask you something and I want you to look me in the eyes.” The woman said, resting her hips at the edge of the desk and pressing her palms on the surface of it. In these moments, in which her glasses slipped a little bit from her septum, Mikasa didn’t like Hange. She was a disaster of a person, but when it came to care about the dancers under her wing, she let the clown mask fall and show how much she estimated them. “Come on, Mikasa. Look at me.”

Mikasa closed her eyes for a second, then she opened them slowly and raised her gaze, clenching her jaw.

“What happened in the club that night, after the competition?”

Her eyes widened and she took a step back, her lower lip trembling. 

She saw everything so clear again: How he dried up gout the life of that woman, delicious delirium was showing the sounds that came out of his deadly mouth as he pressed his body against the other one. 

_You’re not giving me a reason to._

If she told Hange what she saw, he was going to have a reason to kill her, and even when she wanted him so bad it hurt, she wanted to live more. Of course, she didn’t know this feel was caused also by him. 

So she decided to tell her only one part of the truth.

“I was dancing with Marco and I saw that Eren was kissing a random girl he just met five minutes ago.” She murmured, looking around to not face her coacher. 

Seconds later, she heard a little giggle.

“No.”

Mikasa looked at her coacher with anger.

“Yes!”

“Is it that the reason why you fucked up your audition?”

Mikasa opened her mouth twice, not knowing what to say. She didn’t remember the last time she thought of Eren in that way. She even didn’t remember thinking in him the last six weeks at all. Everything went downfall since she met the vampire. 

But, of course, Hange didn’t need to know.

“…Yes.”

Hange crossed her arms, rolling her eyes.

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this. Of all things, this is what made you screw everything up? I thought we left behind our obsession for Eren long time ago.”

Mikasa scratched her cheek in a shy gesture.

“I’m so sorry… It’ll not happen again.”

“No.” Said Hange in a harder tone. “I want you to sleep, ok? And fuck Eren and no—what the hell, there’s no way you’re gonna ask for a main role again until you get over him, am I clear?” 

Mikasa felt her body numb when she heard that.

_“…What?”_

Hange adjusted her glasses.

“What you’ve heard. I’ll not let you dance as a principal if you don’t up once and for all. You decide: or Eren, or Opera Royal Ballet. Now go back to your training.”

Before she exited the room, Hange added some other words.

“Your future is way too bright to let it be overshadowed by someone that can’t even reach your ankles in talent.”

The dancer swallowed, watching how Hange walked to the room in which the rest of the dancers were practicing, leaving her alone with her own thoughts.

As the days went on and after the severe conversation with Hange, Mikasa tried to focus her mind again in her real goal: to be the maximal spot of the Royal Opera House. More to her frustration and suffering, it was harder than she thought, and even when she practiced her ass off in class, when she arrived home her eyes always ended staring at the beginning of the forest behind her house, thinking in how she protected him when Hange asked about that night at the club.

Because yes, Mikasa accepted that she did it to protect his nature more than to protect herself, even when she had a great amount of self-defense growing in her those occasions she felt in danger when she saw him. 

She protected a killer… and still it was for nothing.

The last class was ending when she heard Historia calling her that Friday in the afternoon. Mikasa ignored the voice and walked to the changing rooms. Historia entered when she was putting on her long brown skirt. 

“Mikasa, hey.” 

“Hey.” She answered without looking at the blonde girl, passing her white blouse through her head. It seemed like she wasn’t affected with the same awkward silence that got blushed Historia.

“Did you… did you read my text?”

“What text?”

“The one that I sent you three days ago.”

Mikasa frowned a little, thinking as she got her feet inside her long black boots.

“Oh, yeah, that one.”

Historia flushed, embarrassed. Mikasa released her short, black hair and combed it in fast motions with her fingers. A little tuft fell, rebel, on her forehead.

“So…?”

Mikasa took her rucksack, sighing, and stood up to see her friend better.

“Why are you sorry?”

Historia stammered. 

“Well, I guess is… I mean, it was…”

“Not your fault, obviously” Finished Mikasa, walking to the exit. 

“But!” Insisted the blonde girl. “I know how much you wanted this role.”

Mikasa stopped walking, but didn’t turn to see her friend.

“I will always want to get the main roles.” She took a moment to continue with a cold voice “But not this one.” 

_Since the beginning, I never really deserved it._

Historia heard a glimpse of amusement in Mikasa’s words when she finally left the room.

“Thank you.”

 

…

 

Mikasa came out from the dance academy with the idea of a boring weekend waiting for her already accepted. With no important roles or choreographies to dance or be obsessed during her free days, she was thinking in reading a book —or at least try—, as a way to clear her congested mind. She literally felt like she was left neither the goat nor the rope, and the fact that she was considering the fucking vampire one of those two made things even worse. She hated how normal was now to think about him, a supernatural creature, a demon that killed innocent people, but she also knew she was going to hate more to get over him, to forget that somewhere, a fantastic and handsome creature lived, hiding in the deepest and darkest places. 

The pain through her chest was proof of it, and she still wanted to understand why it was so strong, why it felt so real in spite of the little she knew about him and how dangerous he was. Walking among the pedestrians that windy, cloudy afternoon, was just an expansion of her own depressive emotions. She looked at every face, wishing to see him in one of those walking bodies, trying to forget that he wasn’t human. 

She was just one block afar from the dance academy when she received a call from Historia.

_Again?_

“What’s going on now?” She whispered, focusing in her boots as she came closer to the pedestrian crossing, standing at the edge of the sidewalk to wait for the traffic light to turn red.

_“I’m really sorry, I don’t want to annoy you. Is just that there’s something else I needed to tell you, something very important…”_

Mikasa counted the seconds to go through the crossing. Just three blocks and she would get to the bus stop. 

“What is it?”

Historia hesitated to speak.

_“Where… where are you? We can talk about it in a café, it would be better.”_

“I’m at the corner of Titans Gym, waiting for the traffic light to change.” 

_“Do you think we can have that conversation now?”_ Asked the girl on the other side of the call.

Mikasa was going to answer when two things happened at once.

First, the traffic light turned red, which meant she would finally walk through the street. Second, a motorcycle stood in her way, making her stop with a startle. She was about to scream when the biker took off his black helmet. 

And the world stopped for her.

_“Mikasa… Mikasa? Can you hear me? I’ll go there, wait for me, please.”_

Mikasa wasn’t there. She was at the forest again, looking at the red eyes, dancing between the sensual waves of his voice and admiring every little bit of his inhuman being as it was an ocean in the middle of the desert. Suddenly, she felt thirsty, and goosebumps attacked her extremities as the blood began to flow unhealthily slow. She was sure, her face looked as pale as his in that moment. 

And then she realized… He was a vampire, and he was also there, in the middle of the street with a bloody motorcycle in a Friday afternoon. 

The world started to spin again, but this time faster, and faster, and faster, and the only thing she could do was stare at the deep blue that were his eyes now, the long eyelashes that made his gaze more mesmerizing and enigmatic, windows of a world she craved to know. She couldn’t understand how his lips looked so human, yet so unique and inviting, showing that his handsomeness was part of something a normal person wouldn’t even wish to have. 

Words weren’t easy to come out from her mouth in that moment, yet she was so astonished she didn’t need to order her mind to formulate them.

“…How?” She whispered, her hand still holding the cellphone against her left ear.

_“How what? Mikasa, I’m getting closer.”_

He straightened out, his black hair falling on his forehead and hiding his eyes from her. The motorcycle did a hoarse sound that promised adrenaline. She stared at his basic clothes: a long sleeved white shirt and black pants with the same military boots from before. So simple, and still, he looked better than a professional model or any of Mikasa’s favorite dancers. 

She ended her call, saving her cellphone inside her rucksack without taking off her eyes of him. She felt angry, she felt furious. She wished to be able to choke him, to punch him until he bled, to scream at him for leaving her alone and making her feel guiltier because of her insane decisions thanks to his manipulating memories in her mind, to point at him while she said, really out loud, what he was, what he did, and let the world know the monster he hid inside. 

On the other hand, the truth was she was also relieved. 

“How?” She hissed, taking a step closer to him on the motorcycle. He raised his face, and she saw the same anxious expression that he had the last time they saw each other, just that this time there was a glimpse of enjoyment mixed with what it looked like resignation. 

“Do you want answers?” He asked. 

She closed her eyes two seconds, tasting the leisure his voice sent through her body.

“Yes.”

He did a gesture with his head and offered her his helmet.

“Come with me.”

She glared at him, doubt slipping among her dizzy thoughts.

“Am what if I say no?” She hissed in a sharp tone. “What if I decided I’ll forget about this and never look back?” 

“Then, I’ll disappear. I won’t be back, and you won’t need to worry about me being a danger for you.” He blinked slowly. “If it’s that what you truly want.”

Mikasa almost lost her balance. 

_What she truly wanted._

She looked at both sides of the street, delaying what she had to say.

“Then I…” When she put her eyes on him again, she saw tension in him, like he really cared for her decision. That was, definitively, what made her take action. “I’ll go with you.”

Without thinking twice, Mikasa put on the helmet he offered her, making a huge effort not to touch the tip of his long, stylized fingers. She raised her long skirt to sit behind him and inhaled deeply, her nervousness growing to new limits when his essence went through her nostrils. He didn’t move, feeling her body adapt centimeter to centimeter to his hard back, and both let out a sigh of pure ecstasy when her hands embraced his torso, closing their eyes at the incredible and pleasant sensation of their bodies together.

Mikasa heard him growl and the next second, he was accelerating on the motorcycle, taking her to unknown places. 

Not that far from where they were standing seconds ago, Historia observed the scene with a horrified face. 

…

The vampire drove for around twenty minutes until both reached Sina City, a place that was smaller than Maria City, but also quieter. Mikasa enjoyed the trip, observing the trees that passed fast at their sides. When she got tired of the greenness around them, she stared at his back, her eyes devouring his discovered, pale nape and the little hair strings growing there. The undercut, without any doubt, made him sexier than he already was, and the cleanliness that spread his smell made her flush until she changed her gaze direction. 

Once they were in Sina City, Mikasa finally could think in something that wasn’t her arms hugging him from behind. The city was more attractive than Maria City, thanks to its little streets and stores that were perfect to film historical fiction movies. It was strange to go through its cobbled roads with a vampire biker, even more when her memories of the place were about her and her family or her, Armin and Eren. But no, it wasn’t as weird as accepting the encounter in the first place.

Both stopped in front of a little restaurant between an inn and a bookstore —Armin’s favorite bookstore, she remembered—. The vampire waited until she released him, not showing the disillusionment she felt when cold air replaced the part of her body in which both were touching. He gave the keys to the valet parking man and walked upstairs, waiting for her at the entrance as she tried to fix her hair. She glared at him, almost throwing him the helmet at the man waiting for it next to her, and then she followed the vampire. 

Mikasa didn’t think he was going to take her to a restaurant. Of all places, not a fucking restaurant. After all, he was a vampire and the idea of a vampire sitting as if nothing happened in the middle of a restaurant didn’t fix in her head, but it seemed it would have to.

She looked one more time around her to remember every detail in case that everything ended the opposite way. No, Mikasa was not going to surrender easily, but she wasn’t blind to not see the obvious danger she was getting herself into only to satisfy her strange desires. 

Both entered the place and Mikasa didn’t know what was she expecting, but definitively was not this.

The place was circular inside, tables were surrounding a dance floor at the center, in which three couples were dancing at the rhythm of jazz, played by six musicians at the back of the place on a small stage. Dim lights decorated each table, making feel each diner more intimate and apart from the other tables. Red, black and champagne curtains covered the walls, letting spaces in which huge artistic paintings were exposed. The roof was glass, and its mayor beauty were the stars at the top of the sky, its opaque brightness escaping through the branches of the climbing plants that covered the glass slightly. Some glasses were raised and the wind was coming in, moving the climbing plants that also hung on in some of them. 

“It’s beautiful” She murmured. A woman went to attend them, and once Mikasa focused in her she noticed, surprised, how the vampire talked to her, ignoring the smiles with double intentions she was sending him. Both sat in front of each other in one of the closest tables to the circular dance floor, which Mikasa stared for some seconds, admiring how she was able to see her own reflection in it. When she laid her eyes on him again, he was looking back at her with a mysterious expression. 

“Here you have.” Said the waitress, moving away. Mikasa grabbed one of the menus the woman left and started reading the names of the dishes, putting it deliberately between him and her eyes to not see him. She knew she looked very childish, but she couldn’t think correctly with those addicting eyes taking all her attention and catching every little motion she did.

“I still can see your face.”

Mikasa put down the menu harshly and frowned.

“How?”

He looked bored when he pointed at her chest.

“Your heart emits a constant wave that shows me every red corpuscle inside your body. It reveals your position.”

“Is it… like a radar?”

“Yes.”

“So…” Mikasa straightened slowly, watching the people around her and forgetting her own embarrassment. “You can… you can sense everybody’s heart?”

“Yes.”

Mikasa watched him with an opened mouth for a long moment.

“Then I was right.” She narrowed her eyes, “You knew I was there the whole time.” A slow deny. “You didn’t care I saw you killing that woman.”

“It was an opportunity I couldn’t waste because of a witness.”

“An opportunity you couldn’t waste? You were killing that woman in the middle of a fucking club!” She hissed, angry. “How’s that an opportunity?”

He seemed to be about rolling his eyes when the waitress appeared again.

“What would you like to eat?”

“Salad. No mayonnaise, no salt, no oil, no vinegar.” Said Mikasa a little louder than she expected. The waitress almost couldn’t hide her disgusted face, but Mikasa waited until she started writing to correct herself. “Joking. I want beef brisket and salad. Please bring some BBQ juice and mayonnaise.” 

The woman smiled so openly Mikasa thought it was going to break her face. 

_Done, little bitch._

When Mikasa looked at the vampire again, he was grinning at her. 

“I would like the same.” He said without taking off his gaze from Mikasa. “I also want a bottle of wine, the best you can offer us.”

The waitress wrote the order with the same smile, but Mikasa knew she was frustrated —and furious— to see he didn’t pay attention to her even once. She left and went back quickly with a jar of water, the bottle of wine, and four cups. 

Finally alone, the vampire straightened and opened the bottle to serve wine in two cups, drinking of one of them as he offered her the other one. Mikasa looked at him through the crystal, admiring the way his shape changed slightly with the liquid between her eyes and him. 

“I don’t drink.” She said, roughly. “I don’t want to be vampire’s dinner.”

“Yet you’re having a date with me.”

“This is not a date.” She murmured, putting the cup with a slow motion on the table.

He raised an eyebrow.

“Should I go, then?”

He spoke so casually, yet she felt her chest hardening, and a gesture of pain covered her face. Clenching her jaw, she pressed her left hand on the table.

“Don’t you dare to.”

“I will not.” He whispered just as she let out the words. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t lying, but I cannot accuse your heart for being so damn honest.”

She took a deep breath.

“I don’t understand.”

“Your innocence makes you more receptive to things that happened in your environment, which makes you more interesting to me.” He took another sip of his drink. “You aren’t like the ones from your age.”

“What makes you think that?”

“The fact that you’re sitting here with me.”

Mikasa swallowed.

“I repeat: is not like I can control it.” She deviated her stare from his, admiring the musicians at the little stage with her hands put on her cheeks in a casual form, trying to hide the blush that covered them.

“Me neither.”

_Eh?_

Mikasa looked at him, confused.

“What did you say?”

His eyes narrowed, showing annoyance.

“I can’t control it neither.”

She stayed with a blank expression. “You’re telling me… You feel what I feel too.”

He nodded, closing his eyes with the motion.

“So… when you told me you didn’t have a reason to kill me… Were you lying?"

He opened his yes. “No. But it wasn’t the whole truth.”

Mikasa raised her chin.

“And what is the whole truth?”

“You are going to die in the hands of a vampire.”

Mikasa’s breath stopped. She got away from him until her back was completely pressed against the chair. 

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

This time, he at least showed pity. 

“I’m not kidding, brat.” He passed a hand through his hair, letting out a sigh. “It’s your blood. Humans have different types, you know that, right?” She nodded. “Well, vampires don’t see it that way. The better it smells, the better it tastes. The better it tastes, the stronger you get. A vampire that drinks a rich, healthy human blood gets stronger. Only one of four million people is born with that gift.”

“How’s that a gift?” She said, frowning. She shook her head. “How’s this even possible? Why me? I mean—no offense, but I don’t want to be anybody’s food, not even…” She almost couldn’t say the words. “Not even you.”

“Maybe you, Mikasa Ackerman, don’t want to be vampire’s blood bag, but your body claims it, and is not something you can control.” He drank the rest of his cup, putting it with a little more of pressure on the table again. “Thank whoever the fuck our creator is.”

Mikasa was breathing heavily. The way he said it sounded so stupid and basic, yet so crudely true, she couldn’t accept it. The shivers this thought sent through her body made her serve herself a cup of water. After drinking it all, she put a hand in her chin, thoughtful. Her eyes went to the vampire again, and he seemed to be enjoying the sight of the stars at the sky, just like she did two weeks ago at her backyard with Armin. God, the vampire was so handsome, so mysterious, she couldn’t blame herself for being there with him.

“Is it that the reason why I went to see you every night?” She asked. His eyes went to her face, but he didn’t change his pose. Something closer to anxiety showed in his gaze, but another thought crossed her mind. “Wait… In the club, when the woman spoke, I felt it too.” Her eyes widened. “She was… she was like you, too.”

His answer was like a caress to her body. “Yes.”

In that moment, the waitress went back with the dishes. Mikasa thanked, but her mind was far away from there.

He was right, then. She remembered very clearly how she almost couldn’t hold her legs in position, the eagerness and lust making her confused. When she heard the woman’s voice, it was like hearing her favorite song: a melody that called her and prompted her to follow its rhythm, just that this rhythm was going to lead her to her death. On the other hand, she remembered feeling more anxious when she first heard his groans. So powerful, yet so simple the sounds that set on fire her whole existence. Yes, it was stronger, a greater impact.

He was not being completely honest, but this time, she let him did. Because whatever it was the truth, she knew, somehow, it was worse than dying in the hands of a vampire. 

She started eating, noticing he was not touching his dish. 

“So…?” She ventured, trying to take the recent news as calm as she could. “You’re not eating.”

“I don’t eat.” He said roughly. “I don’t want to have human’s dinner.”

She grinned.

“Very funny.” She took a bite from her beef with all the delicacy waiting in her bedroom at Maria City. Levi did a grimace when the juice of the meat poured on the tablecloth.  
“You want to make me hate you more.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“You hate me? Wow, didn’t know that.” She commented, sarcastic, and gave another bite to the meat. 

“Yes. I do. Since I saw your scary ass at the bathroom, I’ve been having problems.” His eyes almost threw thunders around the place.

“Talk about that with me, I’ll understand perfectly.”

“Yes, let’s talk about how you lost a role thanks to your whim over me.” 

She dropped the beef on the dish with more violence than she wanted.

“It was an important one, you know.” She narrowed her eyes. “How do you know about that?” 

“Why do you care about the less important things?” He said, getting closer to her face all of a sudden. “Why don’t you ask me about my diet? Or the fact that I’m still thinking about killing you in this exactly moment?” 

Mikasa stopped chewing, paralyzed like a scared pet, and his hand appeared in her field of vision with a handkerchief. Slowly, he cleaned the juice around her mouth and chin, his eyes resting longer in her red lips. When he finished, he let his eyes slide through her face until they were looking at each other’s orbs. Mikasa sensed it so strong again: the will to survive, together with the will to rip off his clothes and fuck him right there, on the table. It seemed she wasn’t the only one, because he went back to his seat, his eyes never letting hers. 

She took another piece of her beef, this time chewing it like a civilized human. He served another cup of wine and stared to the sky again, a long exhalation escaping from his mouth.

Mikasa closed her eyes until they hurt, trying to get rid of her dirty and insane thoughts. She hated how much this weird ‘gift’ she had made things more absurd than they already were. 

Almost finishing her dish, Mikasa made another question.

“How is it possible for you to go out in the sunlight?” She asked. “And what about your eyes? Why are they… blue?”

He straightened again, putting his arms on the table after moving aside his plate, intact. She ignored the way his muscles were marked in the thin fabric of his shirt, but not that much, just a little bit, she thought.

“I use an especial protector on my skin.”

She move her head to one side.

“What?”

“Long story. Complicated enough to bore the hell out of you, my lady.” He looked at the musicians. “As for my eyes… They are blue because I’ve been drinking animal’s blood. When vampires drink blood from an animal, they have its old human color for some time, but it’s really short.”

The joke came to her. She couldn’t resist herself.

“I thought they changed to a golden color—“

_“No. Shut up, brat.”_

She let out a little, almost unseen side smile.

“Sorry.” She moved the rests of her salad with lazy motions. “I imagine they are black when you haven’t eaten anything.”

“Yes.”

“The first time you went to my backyard, you were hungry.” She said.

“It was not the first time.” He stated in a smooth tone.

Mikasa looked again at him, admiring the way his thin eyebrows fit so well with his annoyed stare. She understood, finally, that this was his normal expression.

“If you keep telling me how much you want to kill me, I’ll commit suicide, just to say fuck you to you and your vampire buddies. I’ll burn my body inside an oven.” 

“You wouldn’t do it.”

“How are you so sure about it?” 

“Unlike many humans, a good future is waiting for you, and you are very aware of that.”

She moved her plate to one side, too.

“Still, you say I’m going to die in the hands of a vampire.”

“Sometimes I managed to fuck on fate. Maybe you’re the next one to help me repeat my feat.”

“What does that mean?” She said quietly. “Are you going to… protect me?” 

In that moment, she saw how tired he seemed to be.

“I’ll try.”

“But… but I never ran into a vampire. What if I manage to keep it that way?”

“You will not. Believe me, they are…” He looked anxious again. “They’re everywhere. What if it weren’t me the vampire at the bathroom that day in the club? What if it was another one, a mercilessly one? You wouldn’t had survived that day, your coacher would had found no one, and you would had disappeared.” 

She got what he said. Just remembering his horrible face as a vampire sent chills through her body and a desolate sense of emptiness, like if she was told the death was standing behind her. The idea wasn’t far from the truth.

A woman started singing on the stage and Mikasa recognized the song. 

“You are crying.” 

Mikasa blinked. A pair of tears rolled down, making her startled.

“I-I am…”

He looked at her without moving, maybe making up his mind, and then he stood up.

“Let’s dance.”

She stared at him, confused. 

“What?”

He walked to her chair and extended his hand. “I’m inviting you to dance.”

Another pair of tears rolled down her red cheeks, but she accepted slowly, putting her soft hand in his. When he closed his fingers around her dorsum, the familiar lustful sensation made her strip over her own feet and Mikasa had to shake her head to clear her sight. She held her breath, following him at the center of the dancefloor, his eyes never letting hers that were still tearing.

Mikasa almost didn’t notice the subtle way both started to move with the same pace, but they were doing it. Their bodies got closer until he put his hand in her waist and she in his shoulder, and then it was obvious. 

The height difference.

Mikasa giggled, her heart beating faster. She wiped her cheeks in a fast motion. “You’re shorter than me.”

He growled.

“Is a little obvious, don’t you think?”

He made her spin around him while she thought how little she cared about his height… That was the least important thing talking about him, a vampire that could kill everybody in that restaurant if he wished to. As she danced, she found herself enjoying it more than her dances with Eren, Jean or Marco. The vampire was very capable, his moves as smooth and skilled as the ones from a professional dancer. It didn’t matter how she motioned, he was already there, following her pace, and she never felt so privileged to dance with someone like this before.

When she didn’t expect it from herself, she closed her eyes and let him do the rest, freeing her body and allowing him to take her in his arms. He lifted her, spinning with her on the dancefloor, his nose caressing the curve of her neck. 

And then, the song ended. He put her again on the floor, slowly, and turned her to see her face. Both were very, very surprised, but she was the only one breathing hard.  
A slower song went next to the other, the female voice singing with more emotion after seeing them dance beautifully, and he let both of his hands slip from her nape to her hips, prompting her to get closer to him until her cheek was pressed against his shoulder. Again, her neck was exposed to him. Only a little movement from his head and she was dead.

He stayed in the same pose, though, both moving in slow steps that calmed her rushing heart.

“It was this.” He said, caressing her back with his fingers as he put his right palm over the position of her heart. “Your heart was beating so fast, so scared… But you stayed still, and when I smelled you… God.” His fingers tightened the fabric of her shirt. “Some of us have the ability to perceive the good of people. Was that, mixed with the smell of your blood, that stopped me from killing you. Your coacher doesn’t know how much she helped you too. Even after you left the bathroom, I…” She felt him exhaling and she had to close her eyes at the warm feeling. “I followed you. The possibility to have your blood was there, huge, but I was fighting with myself.”

Mikasa tried to stay serene.

“What happened with the other one… the other… vampire?” Mikasa observed the sky, something near to jealousy crippling her. “You seemed to be very into her.”

He made her spin and when they faced each other again, he let both of her hands hold his, their faces so close their noses almost touched.

“That was… A mission.”

“Huh?”

He looked annoyed, again. 

“She was an enemy I was hunting long time ago. That was the closure I was planning, excepting for you, of course.” 

“So… seducing her and drinking the hell out of her blood was your plan too?”

“Yes. That’s one of the most used ways to kill a vampire between us. It’s very complicated to explain, though.” 

Mikasa made silence, understanding. A minute later and when a new song started, she questioned him again.

“What happened with her body?” 

“Do you remember the second night you saw me at the backyard?”

Mikasa didn’t take long to answer.

“Yes.”

“You saw how I left the place.”

“You transformed into ashes.” She said, blinking in an amazed way.

“That’s called black teleportation and it’s… some cool shit almost no one can do.”

Mikasa frowned.

“What? I’m lost.”

He seemed to be… embarrassed!

“Some vampires… The most powerful, have this ability.” He tried not to look at her, but he ended doing it anyway. “I’m one of them.”

Mikasa nodded little by little.

“So, let me get this straight. Vampires, real vampires, can sense the smell of human blood and, if it’s good enough, they can gain power drinking it. When they drink blood, the color of their eyes change to red, but if they drink animal blood, the color turns into the one they used to have when they were humans, just that this blood is not as good as humans’, am I right?”

“Yes.”

“So, we also have to add the fact that vampires can expose themselves into the sunlight without being harmed thanks to a skin-protector —which you need to explain to me to understand it better—. Besides this, some vampires can transport from one place to another and also sense the good of the humans by its smell, but this can be only done by the strongest ones.”

“Yes.”

Mikasa stopped dancing for a second.

“You’re part of the strongest ones.” 

He moved his head, weighing her words.

“…Yes.”

This time, she didn't ask anything, but it was more because of her sudden sense of respect. He was a powerful vampire, and she believed every word that came out of his mouth, she did it because she had seen him being powerful: the vampire he killed with so little effort, the way he desappeared in just two seconds until there was nothing and how he read her thoughts through her heartbeats. Mikasa wondered how it felt like, being this strong, and she let him guide her through the dancefloor as she enjoyed his presence, calming, serene as an ocean without waves, yet powerful and tight, a force that was barely contained within him.

"You said... You said you felt it too." She wanted to hide her face on his chest. Instead, Mikasa straightened. "When I speak to you, you feel the same emotions I do. Is that the reason you followed me to my house?"

He stopped dancing. With a finger, he moved the lock from her forehead to one side of her head. Mikasa opened her lips, but didn't move. It was the second time he touched her hair.

"Imagine being always told that mermaids exist, but there are so few that the possibility to see one is almost impossible. Then, when you least expect it, you run into one, and it's so beautiful and unique, you want to see it again and never stop, even when is forbidden..." His hands went to the sides of her rib cage and his voice transformed in a whisper. "Even when is dangerous and it burns you inside..." He let his lips get closer to her right ear, a sow murmur that fell heavy in Mikasa's belly. "Even when you know you cannot say: She is mine." And just like that, he put space between them, again coldness covering both of them. "Tell me, Mikasa, what would you do?"

She almost couldn't answer. Her body felt numb, without energies, and the fire that could turn it on was just some steps from her. So she fought with the words.

"I would stay by the mermaid’s side."

He let out a side smile that took her breath away.

"That's what I decided to do, too."

 

...

 

They were back at Maria City, back to her house. Mikasa grabbed the plastic bag with the beef brisket he left intact and walked towards the front door of the house, trying not to stare back at the vampire that looked like a human on his motorcycle.

As she was opening the door, a question, the most important one, went to her head.

She called him in a whisper, knowing he was going to hear her. "Vampire…"

"Yes?" Suddenly, he was behind her.

She didn't turn around.

"One last question."

Long silence.

"Alright."

She opened slowly the front door.

"What's your name?"

That was it. The last line that divided their worlds. A single word that was going to change everything Mikasa knew. Once she heard his name, her brain was going to catalog him as an indispensable part of her life and she was going to agree with it.

"I am Levi."

That was the way she started to fall in love with a vampire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you have an amazing Christmas Eve! Not the same over here... But I'll survive. I'm sorry I made you wait too long, hope you like my Christmas gift for you♥   
> See you next update.


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